U.S. has much to learn from our health care (Canada)

The Star ^ | Jul 19, 2009 | Tom Campbell

[Lorianne]

Read the article.

Some interesting admissions in there about Canada's health care system (and taxes).

[proxy_user]

Read the comments, too. There is some vigorous debate there.

[gusopol3]

Only an adequately funded universal health plan can protect all of us from major and catastrophic occurrences

The dumbest statement I've ever read. Well. maybe not. It's sure protected them from hurricanes. Why I've never heard of a hurricane in Canada, come to think of it.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Why is it that most Canadians I’ve met in my life were coming down here for US health care?

[muawiyah]

Some Canadians are waking up and realizing that the socialization of the US medical industry is going to leave them in a world of hurt.

No longer will people be able to just cross the border to obtain expensive but otherwise unavailable medical resources to supplement the primitive Canadian system.

Replacing the infrastructure they now make use of in the United States will cost the Canadians hundreds of billions of dollars they do not now have.

[Lorianne]

Yes, the comments are quite illuminating.

[Clock King]

I read it. Still sounds like a bunch of happy utopian double good plus speak.

Only an adequately funded universal health plan can protect all of us from major and catastrophic occurrences.

Only in a dream world. Disease and sickness are part of life and will evolve as humans evolve. Major accidents can be reduced but never entirely prevented.

Existing levels of tax funding should remain as a floor upon which the system can be upgraded. Funds should be distributed the same way as university funding through an impartial commission. Government's role would then be to set standards, which it can do well, rather than to micromanage, where it is not so good.

So the taxes would stay the same, but people have to pay out of pocket as well. Great. Oh, and an "impartial commission" -- what planet are they from? Haven't read about that anywhere in human history.

[hinckley buzzard]

But there never are sufficient revenues for an open-ended system. This is why we struggle with scarcity of staff and equipment.

The wonderful Canadian system survives because tens of thousands of Canadians come to the US for services every year. If they didn't the mortality stats would be an outrage.

[hometoroost]

From what I read there’s nothing wrong with socialized medicine that capitalism couldn’t cure. Sounds like we’re heading in the wrong direction.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Co-payments based on income would introduce a new source of funding to remedy this imbalance.

This is hilarious. The way to solve the problems with the "free", singlepayer healthcare system is to make another (double) payer help pay for it? You can't make this stuff up. Commie healthcare don't work.

[VeniVidiVici]

It pisses me off when I hear people like Sean Hannity rip our system based on the anecdotal evidence he picks and chooses basically denigrating the many professionals in the system who do the best they can to provide health services.

So you're saying the numerous reports we hear of people waiting months for simple tests and surgeries are lying? I read just such a story the other day where a woman and her husband had to spend their life savings getting her life-saving surgery done in the US as her Canadian directed healthcare was basically leaving her to die.

[calex59]

I moved to Canada 15 years ago from the U.S. and raised two children here and have nothing but good to say about the government run health care system. When I moved up I was a substitute teacher for a year and had the peace of mind that I had health coverage unlike when I did the same job in the U.S. It pisses me off when I hear people like Sean Hannity rip our system based on the anecdotal evidence he picks and chooses basically denigrating the many professionals in the system who do the best they can to provide health services.

[calex59]

I moved to Canada 15 years ago from the U.S. and raised two children here and have nothing but good to say about the government run health care system. When I moved up I was a substitute teacher for a year and had the peace of mind that I had health coverage unlike when I did the same job in the U.S. It pisses me off when I hear people like Sean Hannity rip our system based on the anecdotal evidence he picks and chooses basically denigrating the many professionals in the system who do the best they can to provide health services.

Pardon me, but we don't believe you. Most of us know Canadians, I do for certain, and they have nothing good to say about Canadian health care. Like wise with the few brits we know. All one has to do to find out about the British health care is to read the British papers. Either you are flat out lying or haven't had to actually use Canadian health care.

[Harley]

Hope some of you caught the Huckabee show this weekend. They had a Canadian doctor and a woman with a 15 year old son that needs a spinal fusion. She's trying to get to the US to get it done instead of waiting 2 to 3 years in Canada. Turns out she had the same genetic problem when she was 15 but she was passed off by the Canadian health system until she was in her late 20s and she couldn't walk. She said the Canadian 'bureacrats' said she wasn't old enough and "hadn't suffered enough." She was told there were older people that had been waiting for operations so she should just keep taking the morphine and live with it.

If this Obama Health Care program passes everyone in the US that has a problem will be jacked up on drugs like Michael Jackson waiting to see a doctor or have an operation like they are now doing in Canada.

[Lorianne]

You know, we hear different stories from CANADIANS.
Reading the comments just from this story you get so many different views from CANADIANS.

Frankly, Americans don’t know what to believe about Canadian health care. But I wouldn’t blame Hannity (or any other show host) about that. Canadians themselves can’t seem to agree whether their system is good or not.

[mojitojoe]

Look at sign up date. My troll meter just went off the charts.

[mojitojoe]

I don’t believe you for a minute. I don’t know a single Canadian that doesn’t have nightmare stories about it. 7-8 posts and you’re here praising Canada’s heath care. Not buying it for a minute.

[myknowledge]

Health insurance of the Canucks.